I am always curious what makes a sensible person think that global warming represents an "existential crisis", because I don't think that claim can be sustained in the light of day. It seems to mostly occur from an overreliance on a Catastrophist narrative that is overtly political rather than scientific.
This can be seen perfectly clearly by looking at the new (10 Feb) Nature Communications peer-reviewed paper "A fire deficit persists across diverse North American forests despite recent increases in area burned." Look at not just the paper, but at the peer-reviewer comments in which the authors were asked to change their wording to "make it less useful to denialists". To their credit, the authors refused to do so and stuck to their conclusion: that NA forests are overloaded with fuel because they burn many times _less_ often then they did before the 1780s or so.
On the other hand, I think you've already seen that rushing to electrify everything before the grid can handle it would provoke a real crisis, and that was already true even before the Moss Landing catastrophe (q.v.) which deserves very close scrutiny.
I'm definitely with you on build out nuclear first, then electrify everything.
My concern on global warming is the total of all the different negative impacts. For example, it clearly is starting to cause a mass extinction of numerous species. It's going to change what grows where which will decrease farming yields until we adjust. Water scarcity could become so serious it leads to war. The list goes on...
David, you are a quick study on Colorado energy policy.
I’ve been quibbling with you on some Trump fears, but I agree with you on your energy policy take.
I was at the Capitol last night cheerleading for the re-classification of nuclear power and am very worried that the Colorado Dems will drive break our grid and our economy.
Patrick is right about your assumptions on climate catastrophism.
Climate change is a serious problem, but there are many other consequences to human overshoot which deserve attention. If you watch the Chinese carefully, you will learn that they pay lip service to CO2 reduction and the Paris accords while they build coal plants and a colossal climate change adaptation program. They sell solar panels to the West as we destroy our economies chasing the false hope of net-zero.
In regards to farm yields, it is crucially important not to say "decreasing yields" when you mean "a decrease in the rate of growth of yields". I.e., even the wildly pessimistic predictions only shave a few percent off the rate of growth. They are categorically _not_ predicting a reduction in the total food supply. The predictions about water scarcity tend to be disingenuous at best, and deliberately misleading at worst, in a similar way.
I live in Colorado where Mark Twain had the very accurate quote - "Whiskey is for drinking while water is for fighting". Water scarcity is something that all of us throughout this area have faced for the last 100 years.
It won't take much of a reduction in water to have serious effects here.
David, you summarized well the same conclusions I’ve come to in researching energy over the last few years.
I agree with Patrick’s critique on whether warming represents an “existential threat “. We just don’t know enough. Earth has lost millions of biological species. That doesn’t necessarily represent an existential threat despite being regrettable. I think Bjorn Lomborg probably has it about right. We’ll adjust, yes with some winners and losers in terms of climate impact.
If we all investigated personally everything with impact on our lives we'd have no time to live our lives. So I assumed that wind did reduce CO2 as I don't think anyone before me ran the numbers on this and therefore there was no mention of this anywhere.
There is a great deal of indication that existing utilities are not accepting your analysis. Care to speculate why those who have actual money to spend are so absolutely not buying into your assessment of the energy future?
"Developers and power plant owners plan to add 62.8 gigawatts (GW) of new utility-scale electric-generating capacity in 2024, according to our latest Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory. This addition would be 55% more added capacity than the 40.4 GW added in 2023 (the most since 2003) and points to a continued rise in industry activity. We expect solar to account for the largest share of new capacity in 2024, at 58%, followed by battery storage, at 23%. "
Wind. Operators report another 8.2 GW of wind capacity is scheduled to come on line in 2024. Following the record additions of more than 14.0 GW in both 2020 and 2021, wind capacity additions have slowed in the last two years. [the graphic says wind is 13%. ]
Natural gas addition is 4%. Nuclear is 2%.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61963 points out that since 2000, 3 nuclear sources have come online ... Watts Bar #2 (2016) and Vogtle #3 (2023) and #4 (2024). Vogtle is the most recent "real world" basis for costs. "Construction at the two new reactor sites began in 2009. Originally expected to cost $14 billion and begin commercial operation in 2016 (Vogtle 3) and in 2017 (Vogtle 4), the project ran into significant construction delays and cost overruns. Georgia Power now estimates the total cost of the project to be more than $30 billion."
I think to answer your question it's necessary to cover the two main business models for electric utilities. This is mostly paraphrased from by Meredith Angwin's book, Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid. (Also here on Substack: https://meredithangwin.substack.com/)
One is the vertically-integrated model, where the same utility owns and operate the generation sources along with the T&D assets. The other is the RTO/ISO type where the generation is separated from the rest and the utility must buy and sell generation on a marketplace at wholesale prices.
With the vertically-integrated utility, their profits are tied (and regulated by a state regulator) to their rate base which allows them to recoup their investments in their generation assets, T&D system, etc. This system incentivizes them to want to expand generation capacity as it creates another profit source. These utilities ability to make money by selling electricity is further tied to whether they can generate what is needed or not too, in other words, they pay dearly for unreliability. The vertically-integrated model served coal and nuclear well since these are typically such expensive projects that need decades for the utility to recover their initial costs. In other words, the greater the rate base is, the more they're allowed to make. These projects also typically were designed and financed to assume they could provide electricity at a certain rate.
The RTO/ISO scheme generates revenue not via this guaranteed rate of return but through sales of their generation to these markets. These get complicated really quick but in general they can bid into the market either via real time or via day ahead markets. They only earn revenue if the price they offer is at or below the clearing price of the market itself. Some RTOs/ISOs also have capacity markets where generators are paid to simply be available regardless of whether they produce electricity or not. This makes things difficult for the coal and nuclear plants because sometimes they're needed, other times they're not
- these plants tend to not do well with all the starting and stopping similar to the wear and tear on a car city driving vs highway driving. These capacity markets are also where the utility obsession with adding total capacity comes from. They can build these plants and make some money doing it not because they're actively selling electricity but because they're being paid to be available. They also sometimes provide energy at a price lower than what was anticipated in their business plan making them a loss for the utility. That right there, aside from the overregulation of nuclear, is probably why many utilities are not interested in nuclear.
RTO/ISO gets even more interesting with the addition of renewables. Not only are they being legally mandated as David mentioned, but they're also being favored by governments via subsidies (out of market payments) distorting their true market price. This lets them bid at below market or sometimes even negative prices further making the traditional plants less profitable to operate.
N2N
Natural Gas to Nuclear as Robert Bryce has been saying for years
It’s the only logical solution
I am always curious what makes a sensible person think that global warming represents an "existential crisis", because I don't think that claim can be sustained in the light of day. It seems to mostly occur from an overreliance on a Catastrophist narrative that is overtly political rather than scientific.
This can be seen perfectly clearly by looking at the new (10 Feb) Nature Communications peer-reviewed paper "A fire deficit persists across diverse North American forests despite recent increases in area burned." Look at not just the paper, but at the peer-reviewer comments in which the authors were asked to change their wording to "make it less useful to denialists". To their credit, the authors refused to do so and stuck to their conclusion: that NA forests are overloaded with fuel because they burn many times _less_ often then they did before the 1780s or so.
On the other hand, I think you've already seen that rushing to electrify everything before the grid can handle it would provoke a real crisis, and that was already true even before the Moss Landing catastrophe (q.v.) which deserves very close scrutiny.
I'm definitely with you on build out nuclear first, then electrify everything.
My concern on global warming is the total of all the different negative impacts. For example, it clearly is starting to cause a mass extinction of numerous species. It's going to change what grows where which will decrease farming yields until we adjust. Water scarcity could become so serious it leads to war. The list goes on...
David, you are a quick study on Colorado energy policy.
I’ve been quibbling with you on some Trump fears, but I agree with you on your energy policy take.
I was at the Capitol last night cheerleading for the re-classification of nuclear power and am very worried that the Colorado Dems will drive break our grid and our economy.
Patrick is right about your assumptions on climate catastrophism.
Climate change is a serious problem, but there are many other consequences to human overshoot which deserve attention. If you watch the Chinese carefully, you will learn that they pay lip service to CO2 reduction and the Paris accords while they build coal plants and a colossal climate change adaptation program. They sell solar panels to the West as we destroy our economies chasing the false hope of net-zero.
In regards to farm yields, it is crucially important not to say "decreasing yields" when you mean "a decrease in the rate of growth of yields". I.e., even the wildly pessimistic predictions only shave a few percent off the rate of growth. They are categorically _not_ predicting a reduction in the total food supply. The predictions about water scarcity tend to be disingenuous at best, and deliberately misleading at worst, in a similar way.
I live in Colorado where Mark Twain had the very accurate quote - "Whiskey is for drinking while water is for fighting". Water scarcity is something that all of us throughout this area have faced for the last 100 years.
It won't take much of a reduction in water to have serious effects here.
I heard your testimony last night! Thank you for taking the time to speak.
David, you summarized well the same conclusions I’ve come to in researching energy over the last few years.
I agree with Patrick’s critique on whether warming represents an “existential threat “. We just don’t know enough. Earth has lost millions of biological species. That doesn’t necessarily represent an existential threat despite being regrettable. I think Bjorn Lomborg probably has it about right. We’ll adjust, yes with some winners and losers in terms of climate impact.
I hope you two are right.
So what took you so long? TDS?
If we all investigated personally everything with impact on our lives we'd have no time to live our lives. So I assumed that wind did reduce CO2 as I don't think anyone before me ran the numbers on this and therefore there was no mention of this anywhere.
I still find that weird.
There is a great deal of indication that existing utilities are not accepting your analysis. Care to speculate why those who have actual money to spend are so absolutely not buying into your assessment of the energy future?
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64126
"Developers and power plant owners plan to add 62.8 gigawatts (GW) of new utility-scale electric-generating capacity in 2024, according to our latest Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory. This addition would be 55% more added capacity than the 40.4 GW added in 2023 (the most since 2003) and points to a continued rise in industry activity. We expect solar to account for the largest share of new capacity in 2024, at 58%, followed by battery storage, at 23%. "
Wind. Operators report another 8.2 GW of wind capacity is scheduled to come on line in 2024. Following the record additions of more than 14.0 GW in both 2020 and 2021, wind capacity additions have slowed in the last two years. [the graphic says wind is 13%. ]
Natural gas addition is 4%. Nuclear is 2%.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61963 points out that since 2000, 3 nuclear sources have come online ... Watts Bar #2 (2016) and Vogtle #3 (2023) and #4 (2024). Vogtle is the most recent "real world" basis for costs. "Construction at the two new reactor sites began in 2009. Originally expected to cost $14 billion and begin commercial operation in 2016 (Vogtle 3) and in 2017 (Vogtle 4), the project ran into significant construction delays and cost overruns. Georgia Power now estimates the total cost of the project to be more than $30 billion."
I can speak to Colorado. By law they have requirements to provide a certain amount of power via renewables. Not nuclear.
There is legislation this session, that just passed out of committee in the House, to add nuclear to the list.
I think to answer your question it's necessary to cover the two main business models for electric utilities. This is mostly paraphrased from by Meredith Angwin's book, Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid. (Also here on Substack: https://meredithangwin.substack.com/)
One is the vertically-integrated model, where the same utility owns and operate the generation sources along with the T&D assets. The other is the RTO/ISO type where the generation is separated from the rest and the utility must buy and sell generation on a marketplace at wholesale prices.
With the vertically-integrated utility, their profits are tied (and regulated by a state regulator) to their rate base which allows them to recoup their investments in their generation assets, T&D system, etc. This system incentivizes them to want to expand generation capacity as it creates another profit source. These utilities ability to make money by selling electricity is further tied to whether they can generate what is needed or not too, in other words, they pay dearly for unreliability. The vertically-integrated model served coal and nuclear well since these are typically such expensive projects that need decades for the utility to recover their initial costs. In other words, the greater the rate base is, the more they're allowed to make. These projects also typically were designed and financed to assume they could provide electricity at a certain rate.
The RTO/ISO scheme generates revenue not via this guaranteed rate of return but through sales of their generation to these markets. These get complicated really quick but in general they can bid into the market either via real time or via day ahead markets. They only earn revenue if the price they offer is at or below the clearing price of the market itself. Some RTOs/ISOs also have capacity markets where generators are paid to simply be available regardless of whether they produce electricity or not. This makes things difficult for the coal and nuclear plants because sometimes they're needed, other times they're not
- these plants tend to not do well with all the starting and stopping similar to the wear and tear on a car city driving vs highway driving. These capacity markets are also where the utility obsession with adding total capacity comes from. They can build these plants and make some money doing it not because they're actively selling electricity but because they're being paid to be available. They also sometimes provide energy at a price lower than what was anticipated in their business plan making them a loss for the utility. That right there, aside from the overregulation of nuclear, is probably why many utilities are not interested in nuclear.
RTO/ISO gets even more interesting with the addition of renewables. Not only are they being legally mandated as David mentioned, but they're also being favored by governments via subsidies (out of market payments) distorting their true market price. This lets them bid at below market or sometimes even negative prices further making the traditional plants less profitable to operate.